fandomhighdorms | Fifth Floor Common Room, Tuesday Afternoon

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Fifth Floor Common Room, Tuesday Afternoon

So. Roscoe had been a bunny for two weeks. Apparently that was something that happened.

He was back now, and really famished for anything other than carrots and lettuce. So he did what anyone in his situation would do, and ordered in some burgers from the fast-food place in town. He wasn't sure if they did delivery as a rule, but he used his extra-sweet voice on the phone and thirty minutes later a guy appeared with two gigantic bags of food. Roscoe flashed him a grateful smile and a forty percent tip. Flirting was another thing he had missed while in bunny form.

Now he was chilling on the couch, playing old video games and stuffing his face with burgers and fries. Enjoying the finer parts of being a human being, you know?

[[open like a common room!]]

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Lucille had been up on the roof, and on her way down she stopped by the fifth floor common room, wondering what that noise was.

"Oh." She didn't know who the student was, but eating food in front of screens made her guess that he was from a time close to this, or possibly space.

[SP?]

"Yo," Roscoe said, waving at her with a burger in his hand. His video game controller was vibrating on the couch cushion beside him. "I'm disgusting, I just spent a week as a bunny so I'm in full carnivore mode. I've got plenty to share?"

[SP!]

At least he admitted to being disgusting, which Lucille hadn't expected. "Thank you," she said. "What exactly are you sharing?"

She approached the couch, trying not to let it show that she actually liked the smell of whatever it was.

"Burgers and fries," Roscoe said - and he even had the grace to finish chewing before he spoke. Lucille looked like a pretty formal type of person, and anyway, he wasn't that gross. "I went overboard, there's like two extra burgers here. But seriously, you can't eat just carrots for two weeks and expect to survive."

Lucille sat down on the edge of the couch. "I don't believe we've met," she said. "My name is Lucille Sharpe."

She looked at the burgers, then back at Roscoe. "At least no one tried to eat you."

"Roscoe Kaan," Roscoe replied, scooting over to give Lucille some more space. He was a chronic manspreader, but the couch was big enough that there was still plenty of space. "Lucky me, I had a babysitter who was generous enough not to let me get eaten. I should probably say thanks, yeah?"

What was the etiquette on showing your appreciation to someone who watched over you and fed you while you were magically transformed into an animal?

Being given more space was appreciated, but Lucille used it to keep more distance rather than make better use of the couch.

"I would say one could expect a thank you," she said. "I have only ~~been a moth~~ fallen asleep for a week once, so I haven't had to consider it before. Who looked after you?"

"Dante... uh, Dante something. I don't know his last name." Roscoe popped a fry in his mouth. "You know him?"

He paused and tilted his head. "You know, sleeping for a week sounds fun, but whenever I oversleep I'm like, dead tired the next day."

At the mention of Dante Lucille wrinkled her nose. "I have to say I'm surprised. He is mostly rude, unless perhaps he takes an interest in you." Although Roscoe seemed a little young for that. He looked to be around Thomas' age.

"I can't say I was tired, but it was quite confusing to find that a week had gone by."

Roscoe smirked. That depended on what kind of interest she was referring to.

"I hear ya." Roscoe shrugged. "I'm the kind of guy who likes to stay on top of everything that's going on. I mean, missing a week of gossip and current events is, like, a lot to catch up to."

"Oh, I wasn't concerned with that," Lucille said. "And the radio gave me enough information. But I missed the break and I had things planned which I suddenly had no time for."

She paused. "Do you always eat those with your hands?"

"That's pretty much the custom," he said. "I don't think they even packed a fork, but if you wanna be dainty you could probably go grab one from the drawers."

He had gotten used to people being from different types of worlds. In any case, he was a rich kid and had grown up among other rich kids. He was pretty familiar with people who ate finger foods with a knife and fork just because.

"What kinds of stuff do you do? Here I am, like, with no plans for the rest of my life other than classes and a school dance once in a blue moon, apparently." He was being dramatic, but his tone was casual and dry. Look, the town was boring.

"I do think a knife and fork would make it easier to eat." Without getting your fingers dirty or spilling sauce on your dress.

"I enjoy music and reading," Lucille said. "I play the piano and take harpsichord lessons and I had planned to devote a few days to practicing uninterrupted. Provided no one decided to sing karaoke, of course." That last part was said with obvious disdain.

"Hey, I play piano too," Roscoe said brightly. "I'm more into the singing and dancing, but I can read sheet music and all that. Not sure I've ever even heard anyone play the harpsichord. Is that one of those old-timey string pianos?"

"You do?" Lucille didn't sound sarcastic, but somehow Roscoe didn't strike her as someone who would share her love of piano music. "And I suppose you could call it that. Dr Lecter is giving me lessons."

"I took voice lessons when I was a kid and I just got tired of reading the sheet music over my pianist's shoulder and not knowing how she was making music out of that," Roscoe explained with a shrug. "I'm not really a musician, but it lets me accompany myself when I rehearse."

He set the rest of his food down and wiped his hands on a napkin. "I didn't know Dr. Lecter actually played anything, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. He seems cool."

Class getting cancelled yesterday meant that Tip had been at loose ends now since Thursday, so she'd gotten rather restless. Resulting in wandering from floor to floor in the dorms looking for someone or something interesting. Roscoe counted.

"Hey. Haven't seen you around in a little bit."

She had not noticed any bunnying, no.

"I was a bunny," Roscoe said brightly, flashing her a big smile. "Missed your face."

He held up a bag of food he hadn't touched yet. "You want a burger?"

"Sure, thanks!" Tip grinned back and accepted the bag, investigating the contents. "So . . . is that a slang term I don't know or something? Being a bunny?"

Tip had not yet been properly introduced to this part of Fandom.

Roscoe snorted. "Sadly it's a hundred percent literal," he said. "I physically transformed into a bunny, and this guy I've met a total of three times fed and watered me for two weeks. Which, for the record, is not the way I wanted him to see me naked."

"Yeeeee," Tip said sympathetically. "At least you were covered in fur?"

She hadn't made that next logical leap yet there, either.

"You say 'at least,' I say 'alas,'" Roscoe said slowly with a wry little smirk. "Uh, we hooked up a week beforehand, just to make things even more awkward."

He watched her eyes closely, vaguely conscious of the fact that Tip was a bit younger and more, well, innocent than he was.

Well, in the fact that she'd never hooked up with anyone, certainly. But she had driven across a war-torn country with only a cat and an alien for company. So she wasn't entirely naive.

"Yeah, that sounds like that'd do it. Have you talked to him at all since?"

And that was one way in which he was definitely more innocent! Roscoe had never driven anywhere and only had the vaguest idea that there were wars going on elsewhere in the world.

"Uh, only the weekend we were all old."

So.

"What was the deal with that anyway?"

Tip shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine," she said. "Better, maybe, since you've been a bunny, too. It kinda mostly seems like a dream, to me."

"Figures that right when I was getting cocky about having the vibe of this place down, it just keeps getting weirder." He shrugged. "What were you up to while I was eating carrots and squeaking?"

"Not a whole lot," Tip said. "I got a job at the post office. But that might've been before the Old People weekend."

"Hey, that's kinda cool," Roscoe said. He had never had an after-school job before. The idea seemed kind of mysterious to him, in a spoiled-rich-kid kind of way. "Why the post office?"

"They had a bunch of toothpaste and I was picking some up for J.Lo and -- the lady there offered. She didn't care about me not having a work permit or anything. Which -- admittedly is a little weird and suspicious? But they haven't kidnapped me, I only work one day a week, and I'm making some decent pocket money. So I don't think she's exploiting my youth and naivete or anything."

"Hey, sounds pretty legit. And it's a government office, right? There's all kinds of laws about exploiting minors, probably," Roscoe said with a shrug. "Maybe I should get a job. My allowance has been kinda irregular."

That part he mused mostly to himself, with a thoughtful little frown.

"My boss is an old-timey French lady," Tip said. "Soooo I'm not too sure how much it's run by the government." This was Fandom, after all. "But you totally could. They're pretty boring, but one day a week isn't bad."

"Yeah, maybe," Roscoe sighed. "I don't really have much of a work ethic. But I guess maybe I should, like, learn."

As boring as that sounded.

Tip hadn't really known not having one was an option. "It's a pretty useful skill. Especially if you don't want to rely on your parents forever."

"Mine are pretty unreliable," Roscoe granted. "My dad has been, uh, off the grid since I got here."

He was willing to share more, but felt a little weird about it, so he let his sentence hang there and veered the conversation back toward Tip. "So you've worked before?"

"Not officially." She was too young for a work permit before the invasion, and after -- well, it took a little while to get the 'official' stuff back in gear. Plus, you know, they had the slush fund by then. "But Mom's grocery store job didn't pay a whole lot, so I did, like, babysitting and feeding cats and helping the neighbors shovel snow or whatever for extra cash." She'd've mowed lawns, but no one she knew back then had one. "Where'd your dad go? If you don't mind me asking."

'Off the grid' could mean any number of things, after all.

"So, like, he's in prison?" Roscoe couldn't help the upward tilt in his voice that turned the sentence into a question. It was rare that he had a hard time saying anything, but this was weird family stuff. "For six months. That's why I wound up coming here."

Tip's eyes went a little wide, though she otherwise managed to keep hold of her poker-face. "Oh. That -- that really sucks. I'm sorry."

"Sorry, that's totally weird, right?" Roscoe so wasn't used to making confessions that actually embarrassed him. "I mean, thanks. It's kinda hard. He's just in for this white collar corporate thing, but it's still prison, you know?"

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Fifth Floor Common Room, Tuesday Afternoon

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